March 24, 2008
Nuclear power gets serious
Analysis of:
Britain and France to take nuclear power to the world | www.guardian.co.uk
This analysis is solely the work of the author. It has not been edited or endorsed by GLG.
Implications: The highly developed French nuclear power industry provides nearly 79% of France's energy needs. The UK was in the mode of decommissioning their nuclear power plants. However, declining North Sea fossil fuels and preventing potential dependance on Russian gas reawakened the British nuclear power industry. A nuclear cooperation with France promises to revive the British power industry and in cooperation with France to sell together nuclear plants to the world.
Analysis: The writing has been on the wall for some time that the renewable energy activities can not meet the energy demands of most developed countries, including in Britain. While they were in the process to decommission about twenty one nuclear power stations, eleven non-operating and ten operating power stations, the light bulb came on to aggressively get back into the nuclear power generation and nuclear worldwide business. For this purpose Britain is proceeding with:
Analysis: The writing has been on the wall for some time that the renewable energy activities can not meet the energy demands of most developed countries, including in Britain. While they were in the process to decommission about twenty one nuclear power stations, eleven non-operating and ten operating power stations, the light bulb came on to aggressively get back into the nuclear power generation and nuclear worldwide business. For this purpose Britain is proceeding with:
• Licensing process of four generic reactor designs, including the French Areva design used successfully by EDF ( Electricte de France)
• Alliance with the French advanced nuclear power industry to create a again a skilled British labor force to build and export over the next fifteen years power stations to other countries
• Siting four new nuclear plants in the South of Britan at Hinkley Point, Sizewell, Bradwell and Dungeness
The Anglo-French initiative is also a wake-up call for the US nuclear industry. As a matter of fact the US nuclear industry has just one real player, GE together with Hitachi of Japan. Of course Toshiba, having bought Westinghouse and Areva of France will be competing for the pending new US reactor fleet.
The projected world market for new nuclear power plants is estimated in the hundreds of billions of dollars. GE-Hitachi, Toshiba-Westinghouse and Areva-MHI (Mitsubishi Heavy Industries) are presently competing for this global business. Canada has just announced a 2,000 -3,000 megawatt nuclear baseload plant, one of the largest nuclear projects in the world. Estimates for nuclear plants are in the range of $4,000 to $7,500 per kilowatt.
In summary, nuclear power is back in the forefront of realistic energy planning for some measurable independence of fossil fuels from unstable and price squeezing foreign countries.
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